@PhoenixSerenity
Math was always hard for me. But what I HATED was gym class. I still remember the gym teacher. She would divide the class into two teams to play against each other, and she ALWAYS put all the good athletes together on one team. The "losers" team always got crushed.

I, of course, was always put on the loser team (I'm the kid who was always picked last when kids were picking who was going to be on their team). One day after we got crushed by the good athletes, the gym teacher started yelling at us for being so bad at sports.

I lost my temper.

"Of COURSE the score is always lopsided!" I screamed. "You always put all the GOOD athletes on one team!"

"Oh, and you think *you* could do better?" she sneered.

"Yes!" I answered.

For some reason she decided to show me up. She told me to divide the class into teams. So I did, as fairly as I could. Then we played a game between the two teams.

The final score differed by ONE point between the two teams.

She never said a damned word to me again.

Gym teachers are scum.

#Gym #GymClass #GymTeachers #ElementarySchool #Bullies

@PhoenixSerenity
Everyone ostracized me, too. I was beaten up several times a day, every day. Back then teachers didn't do a damned thing about bullies. If I'd had access to a gun, I'd have brought it to school.

I read all the time - in class, by myself during lunch in the cafeteria, and during recess huddled as far out of sight as I could get. But they always got me at recess. Hunting me down was one of the favorite pastimes of the many bullies at my school.

In retrospect, it's amazing that I'm not a lot more damaged than I am!

@PhoenixSerenity I fought back two times, but I wasn't any good at all. I tended to go blind, somehow. The beatings finally stopped when I decided that I wasn't going to give a damn any more. I wasn't going to cringe and hide. I told the bullies to go ahead and do whatever they were going to do; I didn't give a shit.

That was in my first year of high school, as I recall. I was never beaten up again.

Well, except by my ex-wife. But that's a different story.

@Quasit @PhoenixSerenity

Once during a melt-down, where myself "spazzed out", my vision was reduced to black and white. That would be the time myself got kicked out of a Quaker elementary school.

@PhoenixSerenity @Quasit

Yeah, this was early grade school, so had no context for understanding what was happening either.

Personally, would love to be able to say my meltdown (plural? no idea, recall* too little of childhood to say for certain) was due to autism, as that would indicate being part of a group of folk with common experiences.

But the more myself am educated about the lived experiences of autistic folk, the more clear it becomes that my neurospicy brain ain't fit that designation.

*Probably only recall that event because of the trauma afterward of being told that would not be coming back to the Quaker school. Though, of course, don't recall being told. Only the fact that being told happened.

@beadsland @PhoenixSerenity @Quasit

Oh gawd, gym.

I've seen other kids get in fights with EACH OTHER over how badly they didn't want to get stuck with me on their team. (Even though I was a head taller than all of them and naturally athletic) And the locker room, taking off clothes?? Forget it. Just wearing shorts was bad enough-- sexual harassment etc. I still don't like showing any skin, I resent even short sleeves.

Eventually I got a waiver where I didn't have to take gym, because my parents put me in a self defense class outside of school.

Taking the class was enough for most of the bullies to magically lose interest in me, though.

I did flip out once, and it took several teachers to peel me off the guy. (that was before the martial arts training, too) Didn't get kicked out, but definitely learned I didn't have any right to stand up for myself. Ugh.

The things I'd say to those teachers today....